


run, resolute

by ninemoons42



Series: Dragon Age Inquisition - Kiriya - Original Flavor [21]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Cassandra swears for stress relief, Casualties of War, Dragon Age Quest: Here Lies the Abyss, Established Relationship, F/M, Families of Choice, Gen, Grey Wardens, Heart-to-Heart, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Female/Female Relationships, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Snark, Stress Relief, Swearing, laughing or else we'll cry, the ruthless calculus of war, ugly truths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-07 02:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5440916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kiriya Trevelyan, Garrett Hawke, and her companions (plus his friend Varric) before, during, and after the events of "Here Lies the Abyss", told in conversations and interactions between the battles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Shadows moving in magelight-glow: and yet Kiriya couldn’t really decide whether staying outside in the miserable merciless rain was better than getting into the tent on the outer edge of their makeshift, waterlogged camp.

Or, well, what else was new? She was in Crestwood and she felt like mud and rotten grass and the unending squelch of bog underfoot. 

It was just that this time there was a new entry on the ever-growing list of things that she had to deal with.

“Come on in, Steel, can’t have you catching your death of cold,” came Varric’s voice, a little muffled by the ongoing downpour.

“As opposed to death by you -- or me, I suppose.” And she gritted her teeth and stepped into the tent, and there in the corner, filling it up with his shadow, was Garrett Hawke. That glower was something she’d rapidly grown familiar with in his weeks of sheltering at Skyhold -- and she’d learned a little of his past from his own mouth, not from the book that Varric had written with its exaggerations and its missing details, but that didn’t really make it any easier to be in his presence. 

If she had to describe it -- and she’d tried, to Josephine’s sympathetic and long-suffering ears -- she’d say that the Champion of Kirkwall was a man permanently haunted by his past. That he might as well be muttering to the ghosts that hung off his shoulders, the ghosts of his mistakes and the ghosts of people he’d helped and harmed and hurt and healed. He seemed to have set aside the idea of hindsight: he could only see the loss that walked in his footsteps.

That probably went a long way towards the frown that was etched into the man’s face. She could almost sympathize with the lines of him, the pain and the loss in his eyes.

And now they were heading towards -- what? Something worse?

“I can’t read your mind, Steel,” Varric began, again. “Share with the class?”

“I have no idea what we’re doing here,” she told him, honestly. “And even less of what we’re going to find.”

“Trouble. What else is there?” Hawke said, after a long pull from his wine bottle. 

“I’m not unfamiliar with the idea, believe me,” she said, “but I hope you feel that I’m only being reasonable if I ask for a little more warning. A little more information.”

“I already told you everything I know.”

Kiriya shook her head. “You haven’t, because I don’t even have the _name_ of your contact.” 

“What difference does it make?” But he looked weary and not at all belligerent, and despite herself she could almost see what his problem was, and she could see that he didn’t feel at all relieved. She carried the mark on her hand, after all, when he’d been the one candidate Cassandra and Leliana’d had in mind for the position of Inquisitor. Instead she was carrying the mark _and_ the title, and he still couldn’t see that maybe things could get better, at least for him.

Maybe she could understand that.

She took a deep breath, and the cup of wine that Varric handed her. “I’ve done my fair share of traveling around the Free Marches,” she explained, as gently as she could. “I’ve met nobles and bandits, Templars and mages, and a handful of Grey Wardens, too.”

“That might be so,” Hawke said, “but I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”

“Garrett,” Varric said, chiding.

“I know, I know, she’s trying to help. I understand, Varric. You’ve only been talking my ears off about her. You want to protect her, and frankly, you should. But still.”

“You could maybe talk _to_ me and not about me, as I’m actually still here,” Kiriya murmured. “Or would you like me to leave? Though I haven’t decided as to whether I’ll just exit this tent or strand you in Crestwood.”

“Please don’t.” Two words, and Varric actually sounded hurried. Worried. Care-worn.

“Why? What do you need me here for?”

“You’re leading us -- ”

“No.” She shook her head. “I lead you, Varric, yes, but I’m acting on a lead from Hawke,” and here she nodded at him. Made herself meet his eyes. “So, the way I see it, he’s leading.”

“And we all know what happens when I lead people into the unknown,” Hawke muttered. 

“Now that was uncalled for,” and Varric really did look stung, she thought. “You’re not about to go off and proclaim that too many people are dead because of you, because actually, I’m still here, and I’m still alive! And I was with you all that time!”

“Say that to me with a straight face when I know you’re still hearing the red lyrium song. How did you refer to it again? What was the word that you used? Oh, right. You’re hearing the song and you think of it as _death_.”

She almost took a step towards Varric when he jerked back as though he’d been struck in the face.

“Hawke.”

“Varric.”

“You two,” she sighed, instead, and snatched the bottle that Varric had almost dropped. She took a hard gulp of its contents -- which burned going down -- she had to fight the impulse to spit it out all over the bedrolls. “Never mind. I know why you want me in here.”

Blank faces. Was Hawke starting to look hostile? Well, perhaps he had the right of it -- she wouldn’t move fast enough to evade his magic, not even if she ducked into friendly shadows. She still eased one of her knives from her belt. Blade in its scabbard, but she could draw more freely now, just in case she really had to.

“Why,” Varric asked, voice and expression gone utterly flat.

“Because you need someone to stop you from killing each other.” Kiriya took another drink and scrubbed the back of her hand across her mouth. “Ugh, this is really bad.”

“What,” Varric began.

“Not yet finished,” Kiriya said. 

“Stop drinking that shit,” Hawke said.

“Shut up,” she snapped. “You’re friends, you want to make it out of this one alive, like you always pray you do, wherever it is you’re going. Believe me, I know exactly how that feels. But right now you’re nursing too many wounds, and both of you’re just damned _stubborn_ enough that you won’t admit that some of those wounds come from -- each other.” She sighed, and made a face at her bottle, and drained it. Blackish liquid smearing off onto her skin when she wiped her mouth. “You have one night to settle this, this thing that’s festering between the two of you -- and then, Hawke, I’m going to gut you but not before prying out the name of your contact. And Varric, I’ll turn you over to Cass, and this time I mean it when I say, Maker help you. She’s feeling shitty enough as it is.”

The tent seemed to whirl around her, random objects swaying crazily from side to side, as she got to her feet. “I am going to my tent and I am going to sleep, and I expect the two of you to get over yourselves, or at least _try_ and _keep trying_ , or else I’ll throw you into a rift and close it behind you.”

She put a hand out to steady herself, and managed to weave her way out. Managed to find the path to her tent. There was an odd song in the rain, whispers she couldn’t quite make out, like when she was half-asleep and Cole was muttering next to her, and she almost looked around for his tell-tale hat -- but then there was a step behind her, and she grabbed her stiletto and whirled -- 

A man. Bearded. Streak of red paint across the bridge of his nose. If she squinted, she could just about make out the strands of silver in his dark hair. Easier to see the sorrowful lines in his face. 

“Hawke,” she said. “Garrett.”

“Make up your mind,” was the almost-kind reply. “Just don’t call me by my full name.”

Kiriya shrugged at him. “Wasn’t I just telling you off? You’re supposed to be talking to Varric. Get yourself back in there and understand each other. You know what’s going to happen if things are still shit in the morning.”

“You have to admit that between him and me, things are nearly always shit, and not just in the morning.”

“Your point being?” She shivered and hugged herself. Cursed the rain. 

“My point, yeah,” Hawke muttered. “My point being, I don’t know, what’s in this for you?”

She frowned, and cocked her head to the side, and said, “Time.”

“Excuse me?”

“Time, Hawke.” She sighed, and looked at her mud-stained boots. “As in, the thing we’re all running out of. As in, the thing that we don’t ever have enough of.”

“I know I’m running out of time,” he told her. “You can’t tell me _you_ are.”

“I don’t know, there’s only a Darkspawn magister trying to put my head on a pike.”

“The same Darkspawn magister I failed to kill.”

“And he’s going to get to do just that -- kill you, plus he’ll kill me into the bargain -- if you don’t pull your head out of your ass.”

That got her a snort. “Seems to be working so far.”

“You can’t do this alone,” Kiriya muttered. She wanted him to understand, and didn’t know what to say. What to do. “I know I can’t. And I understand, from Varric’s book and from the things you’ve told me, that you didn’t.” She held up a hand to forestall his words. “I listened, you know. I paid attention. You don’t mention their names, maybe because you think that keeps them safe, I can’t judge, I’ve done the same thing. But I can hear that your friends were with you. That you won your victories _with_ them, not in spite of, despite the image you try to project. Might as well accept it for truth, wear it in your hat and let people see.”

“And you are -- what, Inquisitor, the replacements?”

She sighed, because she couldn’t smack him. “Quit playing games, you asshole. We are a new set of allies, but we could never come close to _replacing_ your friends. We are...we are another group. How do I tell you this? I have sisters, there are five of us, I lived a long time without them because of terrible reasons that weren’t any of us, but now, but now we’re working together, we’re all together, we’ve been reunited and we’ll try to stay together for as long as we can. And they’re my sisters, they’re not the people I go out on my missions with. I treasure them, I treasure my sisters, as much as I treasure my companions. I don’t value one group over the other.”

“No more family,” was all Hawke said.

Kiriya stared, just for a moment, and said, “Forget it. You know what, forget it. I guess I don’t have the words to convince you. Take us to your contact in the morning and -- and then, I guess you’ll do what you need to do. Be well.” 

She turned on her heel with a squelch. The cold rain had yanked the fug of Varric’s liquor from her mind. All she wanted was her bedroll. Was to get all of this over with. 

“Kiriya,” Hawke said, behind her.

She stopped, and sighed again. She didn’t turn around. “Hawke.”

“My contact’s name is Jean-Marc Stroud.”

“Thank you,” she said, wearily.

“And -- you’re right about me. About the people I care for.”

“Thank you for telling me that,” Kiriya said. “But honestly I don’t need it. You know who does? _Varric_.”

The raspy quiet sound she heard not long after was only barely recognizable as a laugh. “Well-played, Inquisitor. I’ll get on it, shall I?”


	2. Chapter 2

Every time she looked down at the ground beneath her feet, at the shifting sands, she saw -- she shook her head and tried to will the bile rising into her throat away. Red, red, why could she still see the red of the dead Wardens’ blood? Indelible stains, that she felt she were carrying around on her own skin, in her own soul. 

What they’d seen today -- there’d been no words. 

Grey Wardens dying at the hands of their own brothers and sisters. _Foolish_ Grey Wardens in thrall to Erimond. _Frightened_ Grey Wardens tricked into hearing the Calling. 

Foolish she could take, and frightened she could deal with. People were fools. People fell prey to fear. Everyone was like that. She could remember running away from Elisavet like an idiot; she could remember sitting down because she didn’t want her knees to knock together at the mere thought of the man who’d called himself her father.

But this? A blind unthinking _slaughter_?

Too much, too much -- she dropped the bundle she’d been carrying in the crook of her arm and crouched onto the sand. Throat too tight, stomach heaving, more than just gorge, more than just the terrible choking regret of _too late we came too late_ \-- she coughed, and then tried to swallow, and there was nothing she could do. The remnants of her sparse dinner on the shifting sand. More coughing, hard enough to leave her shaking, and tears springing to the corners of her eyes -- not tears of sadness. She was _angry_ and she didn’t know whom she hated more -- idiot power-hungry Tevinter magisters or, or --

“Kiriya. Breathe.”

A hand on her shoulder, free of its usual gloves and armor and gauntlets -- and she let herself cling to it. A hand that was surprisingly shapely, soft skin and carefully trimmed nails.

Strength. It was hard to forget Cassandra’s strength. That was Cassandra, all on her own, lifting Kiriya out of the sands. “Do you want to go back to your tent?”

“ _No_ ,” and perhaps the word was far more vehement than the question that had warranted it, but -- suddenly, suddenly, she needed to be clean. Needed to scrub the grime off her skin. The blood that had spilled onto her armor, that had been on her knives -- she felt it as though it was staining _her_ , the very bones of her -- and she broke away from Cassandra. Headed for the spring. Cool waters here, and the stars in the sky looking serenely down at their own wave-dancing reflections.

Heedless of Cassandra’s presence and thankful that she was there: Kiriya stripped her leathers away, nearly tearing them off her skin, and plunged headlong into the deep rippling spring water.

Down, where steady rocks loomed out of the water-dark. Down, where there was only water and where she could forget the sun that beat down onto the blood and onto the bodies. Blue and gray armor, stained with demon spit and demon guts. 

No. She shook her head. This blue was different. This blue was quiet -- 

A sharp pain in her chest. She kicked up, away, and broke the surface. The desert air was surprisingly sharp and clean as she took in deep gasping gulps. 

“Feel better?”

“I don’t know,” Kiriya muttered, and, treading water, she turned around. Cassandra was sitting on one of the flat rocks that seemed to crouch, waiting, over the cool waters of the spring. Leaning back on her hands and looking troubled as she stared into the sky. 

“You look like I feel,” Kiriya said as she splashed out of the spring. She bumped her shoulder against Cassandra’s as she sat down.

“I am -- I am as troubled as you are, but am I allowed to feel the way I do now?”

“I don’t see why not,” Kiriya murmured. 

“My order,” Cassandra said, quietly. “The Seekers. Why have we seen none of them? Where has the Lord Seeker taken my brothers and sisters? But it seems like a small matter compared to what it is we must now deal with. That the Grey Wardens have come to such a point -- that would not bode well for Thedas.”

“I don’t know,” Kiriya said, again. “I can’t think of any way to talk about -- to talk about today. About what we saw out there. About what we’re about to see.”

“I would not attempt to write that report either.”

“Except that we’ll need to. A report from me, and a report from you. Otherwise how will the others know that we might be about to fight a war against the Grey Wardens?”

“I do not want to think about that,” Cassandra said. Vehement. Quietly fearful.

Kiriya knew how she felt. “But we might have to.”

“Yes.” A short pause, and then: “Will you excuse me for a moment?”

Kiriya blinked. “Eh?”

“I am about to commit a very necessary sin.” And then: a short sharp stream of words, or at least the sounds seemed to be words, but words in a language that Kiriya was thoroughly unfamiliar with.

Kiriya narrowed her eyes. Considered the other woman. “Nevarran. You were speaking in Nevarran just now?” she asked, after Cassandra had taken a deep breath and covered her face with her hand.

“I was _swearing_ in Nevarran.”

Kiriya smiled. “Ah. I was wondering. The words sounded, ah, quite -- rude.” 

“I assure you they were.”

“Good,” Kiriya said. 

“No,” Cassandra muttered as she twisted her hands together. “Because it was unbecoming of me to do it. I apologize.”

“Apology not accepted.” She nudged the Seeker, gently, with her shoulder. “Do you feel better?” 

Long pause, quiet enough that Kiriya thought she heard the distant wailing cry of some night-wandering desert predator, and the answering panicked scream of its prey.

And then her attention fell back to her side, as she watched Cassandra smile, and attempt to cover it up. “Yes. I do not feel so perturbed now.”

“That’s why you’re not allowed to apologize for it.”

That smile slid sideways, turned into concern. “And you, Kiriya? What will you do in order to feel better? Tomorrow we must continue with the task. And it’s -- I would not say that it is a pleasant task.”

“No no no, not pleasant at all,” Kiriya muttered. 

In the end there was nothing for it but to pick up her bath things. Cedar-scented suds in her hair, and honey-rich soap against her skin. Cassandra splashing into the water beside her. A small jar of dawn lotus salve for her sun-scorched face.

After, she left her boots unlaced for the short walk back to camp.

“I can teach you,” Cassandra murmured, with the tents almost in sight.

Kiriya blinked. “Teach me what?”

“What I was saying earlier. It might help.”

And what a blessed relief it was to laugh. “You know, I just might take you up on that.”


	3. Chapter 3

She turned her hand over, careful. Worn and weary and weighed down. There was an unpleasant sharp twinge in the muscles that led away from her elbow, back down to her wrist. Was there any elfroot salve here? She couldn’t remember what she’d left in this tower -- perhaps Cullen had used the salve on his own aches and pains -- 

“You’re loud. Louder today. Louder than the mark on your hand.”

“Cole,” Kiriya sighed, and pulled her knees up higher, high enough so that she could rest her forehead against the pulled-tight skin. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he parroted back. His hand landed on her bare skin, precisely between her shoulder blades, just missing the latest line of black-threaded stitches. “I brought you a rune.”

“Too late for that,” she said, gritting her teeth before and after the words. “The water’s already cold.”

“Why did you stay in the bath until it was cold? You hate being cold.”

“I couldn’t move,” she said.

“Not just your bones, not just the tired sinews, not just the new lines in your skin. Your mind, too. Your heart and your soul. All of that is -- wearing thin. Like cloth does, when you wear it over and over again -- eventually the stitches weaken. Eventually the warp and the weave wear away.”

She looked up, and caught a brief glimpse of a smile. “Spending time with the seamstresses?”

“Needles and pins and thimbles go missing. I help them keep their workboxes tidy.”

“And if some red gets into Vivienne’s white robes, or some blue into Sera’s leggings, or some silver into Leliana’s sleeves?”

Cole only smiled. “I pick good colors.”

“And that, you got from Solas.” Still, she tried to smile back at him. “At least give me some warning if you plan to put any colors into my clothes.”

“You would look good in -- gold. Gold like the trimming on Cullen’s coat.”

“The battlefield’s no place for gold,” she said, gently.

A soft hum behind her, and the clink of the bath things moving: and out of the corner of her eye she saw Cole uncorking the bottle half-full of blue liquid. “Cole,” she murmured. “I already finished washing my hair.”

“Still have sand on you.” Pressure on her head, on her scalp, his broad palms and his firmly gently fingertips. Careful circles, growing and shrinking, sweet sharp release of tension. 

She groaned, softly, appreciatively.

“You’re too loud,” Cole said again. “You saw terrible things out in the sands.”

“And I will see more. I have to go back there and I have no idea what I’ll find when I get to the fortress itself.” Kiriya cursed Erimond, softly, beneath her breath. 

“Take me with you.”

“I’m thinking that maybe I should.” Kiriya hissed softly as Cole’s fingers dug into a knot that had been stubbornly lodged at the bottom of her neck, the bright blossom of black pain suddenly unraveling behind her closed eyes. “I want to take all of you. I just have to be careful with this return trip; we need to bring the right people to this kind of fight.”

“They will advise you. Cullen and Josephine and Leliana. They want you to fight and to win and to come back. Come back alive.”

“I’d like nothing better,” she admitted.

Now Cole’s hands were dipping into the cold water, pouring it over her head. She felt the suds sloughing off from her hair, elusive wildflower scents swirling from his palms.

When he patted her shoulder and murmured, “Done,” she smiled and dashed water and the last stray soft bubbles from her eyes and looked at him. “You really didn’t have to do that -- but I’m glad you did. I appreciate it. Thank you.”

“You’re a little quieter now.”

She nodded. “Because you helped me.”

“I’m always happy to help. And to help _you_.”

“I wish I knew why,” Kiriya murmured, after a moment. 

“I remember hearing you. On the mountain. The red beasts were coming, and you didn’t know that they were there -- you weren’t ready -- ”

“No one was,” she sighed.

“But when you knew, when you heard -- you cried out. Once. No one heard it but me. And then you rushed out into the night, into the fight, into the enemies that you didn’t know.” Cole looked solemn. “You screamed and I wanted to help. There were others who needed me. They were afraid of losing you.”

“So you’re helping me because -- ”

“Because you’re like me. You want to help. You want to make things better.”

She tried to smile. “You’re better at helping people.”

“It’s not a competition, Kiriya.”

And that startled her into a quiet laugh. “You know, you’re right.”

“I try,” Cole said, and then he was pulling one of the little folding camp-chairs closer. A fresh set of clothes piled neatly on top, and a pair of drying sheets. “He’s coming,” he murmured. “He likes to see you in just your skin.”

And before she could open her mouth to deny her blush -- oh, she could _feel_ it rising, up from her shoulders, up to her eyes -- there was a soft scrape as of a footfall upon stone, and when she looked around she was alone, again.

“What I wouldn’t do for that ability,” she chuckled, and quickly she rose from the tub. Sighed, gratefully, as she wrapped one of the drying sheets around her body. The soft material was warm. 

Out of the water and onto the flagstones, and she shivered and scrubbed her hands rapidly up and down her arms. Hopped up and down as she wound her dripping hair into the other sheet -- and when she turned around she stopped dead in her tracks. One hand flying to her mouth. “How -- I didn’t hear you -- ”

That smirk on Cullen’s face! What a sight it was. What a sight he was. Sweet and gentle. Just for her. She reached out to him, and sighed when her fingertips brushed against the dark shadows of stubble upon his cheeks. He was real, he was here, and how had he sneaked up on her?

“You’re not the only one who knows how to move around quietly.”

“You always make noise,” she murmured, “too much clanking, not enough oil in the joints.”

And he laughed and pulled her close. Rough-spun tunic against her cheek, and the breadth of his chest: and she sighed and settled her arms around his waist. “You’re so warm.”

“You look like you could use some warmth. Come on,” was Cullen’s reply.

“Your reports,” she murmured. “Meetings. The soldiers.”

“All of them gone to their dinner. Yes, even Leliana and Cassandra. So I’m at liberty tonight.” A pause, and then: “Maker, you smell so nice.”

“Usually people smell good after a bath,” Kiriya teased. “And I had help. I washed my hair and then Cole came in and washed it again.”

She got a smile out of him for that -- a smile that she followed up the ladder with her clothes clutched in the crook of her elbow. 

Side by side at the foot of Cullen’s bed -- she leaned against him, let him play with a trailing lock of hair that had fallen out of the sheet wrapped around her head. 

“Are we ready, Commander,” she murmured, after a moment.

“Almost, Inquisitor. We’re waiting for a few more reinforcements, a few more units we’ve managed to find here and there -- and we’ll be ready to march in two days, three at the latest. We might even be able to leave Skyhold before Hawke and Stroud come back.”

“Make sure we save one or two of the fastest ravens, so we can immediately let them know of our movements.”

She felt rather than saw him nod -- his cheek moving against her hair -- and she sighed. “And now I don’t want to talk about Adamant or about Grey Wardens or -- anything else.”

A deep chuckle was what she got in response. “Do you want to think about dinner?”

“Let me get dressed,” Kiriya began, as she got to her feet.

Only to be stopped by Cullen catching at her hand. “No need.”

And as if on cue, there was a loud knock on one of the doors.

She watched him as he went down the ladder, and then came back up. A basket hanging from his arm. 

Kiriya shook her head. “I’m impressed, Commander -- and just how many of your soldiers did you yell at to get them to leave us alone for the night?”

That smirk, again, sharply amused. “I’ll never tell.”


	4. Chapter 4

A wavering voice, almost lost in the screaming rage of a red lyrium dragon, almost lost in the clamor and the clash of battle, and Kiriya screamed, broke away from the others -- footsteps behind her and Cullen’s voice, but he wasn’t yelling at her to stop -- and then: a chill, and a lull, the dragon between roars.

_In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice!_

“Clarel!” Stroud cried out -- she stepped aside and he still managed to nearly shoulder her off the walkway, and she danced nimbly for her balance -- 

Another scream, anguished -- _was that the dragon_ \-- 

Cracking stone beneath her, and empty air, and Kiriya screamed and the others were falling in after her! 

_Think! THINK!_

Green flash, the palm of her hand, Erimond’s sneer -- and in the midst of it all -- useful information.

Hawke, somewhere above her, shouting angrily, all the way down.

Take a chance. Take her life and theirs into her hand.

And she held her marked hand out. Thought of opening. Somewhere to fall into that wasn’t unyielding rock, that wouldn’t end in shattered bones and shattered lives.

She screamed.

And closed her eyes.

Another green flash, huge and flaring and blinding.

_Splash._

A hand gripping her wrist. She clutched back, and felt a heartbeat beneath skin, and dared to look up.

Into Hawke’s eyes.

“We’re alive,” he said. “But we’re not in the courtyard any more.”

“Are we even still in Adamant?” she asked, shakily getting to her feet.

“I don’t think even that place was ever as green as this.”

And she looked around. Green unearthly light. Even the rippling water at her feet flared green with every movement. The others were picking themselves up, and she breathed out a quick gasp of relief. Varric and Cassandra, steadying one another; and Dorian, who was scowling.

She splashed over to him. “ _Fratris._ ”

“ _Sorora_ , I have no idea what you’ve done, and I have a very bad feeling about where you’ve brought us.” Blood streaking his sleeves and his face and his hands. 

“Better than being dead.”

“Except when living people _are not supposed to be in the Fade_.”

She sighed, and she wanted to glare at him, and she didn’t. “The Fade. Are you sure?”

“No, but look,” he said, and he pointed to a massive island that hung in the distance, seemingly nothing holding it up. “I’ve heard too many tales of the Black City. And I’ve read the books, I’ve seen this place before. We’re not exactly on _our_ side of the Veil any more.”

“Hawke,” Kiriya said. 

“Everything he said sounds about right,” was the weary reply. “We are here, in the Fade, in the flesh. And -- I think we need to get out of here.”

“Steel,” Varric said, suddenly.

She tensed. One word, one warning.

“We can’t stay here,” Cassandra muttered.

“I agree.” And Kiriya looked over her shoulder. A sword and a horrific head wound, so his face was stained with a blood-red mask: Stroud, looking grim. “I know very well what it means to physically enter _and then exit_ the Fade, but Void take me, that’s exactly what we need to do right now.”

“Another Blight,” Hawke groaned. “And we its harbingers.”

“Not going to happen,” Kiriya murmured. “We just need to get out of here properly. I opened a rift to get in here -- I need to open the right rift so we can get out.”

“That could take a while,” Dorian protested.

“Then we’d better get started.”

Up a flight of stairs, down a faintly shimmering path -- and then there was movement ahead, and Kiriya held back the scream that rose in her throat through sheer will. Scraped her blades out of their scabbards. “Who goes there,” she snarled.

“Welcome, Herald.”

A splash behind her, and a muffled shout of Cassandra’s name.

And her friend was now beside her, reaching out, beseeching. A name falling from her lips. “Divine Justinia. Most Holy.”

The shadow on the path ahead of them inclined her head. “You must not stay here. You must find the way out. I can guide you, I can help you. But there is something that must be restored, first. Herald. What do you remember of the day the Breach appeared in the sky?”

Kiriya opened her mouth. Tried to remember.

Nothing came to her.

“I woke up and I had this mark on my hand. I didn’t know how it got there.”

“Kiriya,” and this time the warning was in Hawke’s voice.

“You cannot remember,” the shadow on the path said. “Those memories were taken from you. You must find them first. Then the way out will open.”

“Tell me,” Kiriya growled. “I don’t want to be stumbling in the dark. I don’t want to be the lamb led blindly to the slaughterhouse.”

“And if this should be the path to that slaughterhouse?” Cassandra snapped, suddenly.

Kiriya gritted her teeth.

With her stood -- friends and allies.

Ahead was the Fade and the shadow of the Black City.

But ahead, too, lay the possibility of escape.

“I don’t know,” she said, quietly. “I don’t have any answers. I don’t trust anyone or anything in this place. Least of all myself.” She looked around at all the others. “I will listen to your advice.”

“Will you _heed_ it, that’s the question,” Dorian said, softly. But he was putting an arm around her shoulders, was pulling her in for a brief embrace. “Lead on. Lead us.”

She met Cassandra’s eyes, and Varric’s. Hawke’s and Stroud’s.

And she turned back to the shadow of the Divine. “Speak.”

Wraiths. Memories. Corypheus’s voice. Fearlings. Hawke and Stroud shouting about Grey Wardens falling in thrall.

She could struggle through all of that and stay standing.

The gravestones were another matter entirely. _Helplessness_ and _Become his parents_ and _Temptation_ \--

And, beyond those: _Kiriya Trevelyan._

_Father._

No.

“Come on,” she growled, and she pushed past the others, past the concern in Hawke’s face and the resignation in Stroud’s.

They came upon the shadow of the Divine again. Words for Leliana. Battling Nightmare and its creatures. A rift -- 

“Out,” Kiriya bellowed. Spiderlimbs and screeching and the ineffectual scratch-scratch of her blades. “All of you, out!”

“We’re not leaving you!” Dorian screamed -- 

And his words were swallowed in green light as he was consumed by the rift that was supposed to lead back into Thedas. Cassandra and Varric vanishing with him -- and then, suddenly, the rift was gone.

“Of course we’d be left behind,” Hawke sighed. “Varric’s going to kill me.”

“A little help,” Stroud grunted.

Kiriya darted forward and sank both of her blades into one of Nightmare’s many limbs, and -- it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t satisfying. 

She leapt into the fray, fighting alongside the Grey Warden. Dancing around too many spidery legs, too many leering eyes. Too many taunts, the whispering leering voice of her father.

“Why,” she thought she heard Hawke groan, somewhere behind her -- and then, sharp crackling tingle of magic. The familiar iridescence of barriers. 

How long were they all fighting? Kiriya lost track --

Suddenly, again, with her blades in mid-swing: the rift! Opening behind her again! 

“Inquisitor,” Stroud said, suddenly. “Take Hawke and go. Get out now, while you still can -- you are needed in Thedas -- ”

“As though you weren’t?” she snapped at him, at the same time putting out another set of beady black eyes. Slashing another demon’s throat. “The Grey Wardens must have a leader.”

“Then choose someone to stand at their head. I will stay here. I will buy you time to get out. _And you have to get out._ Only you can defeat Corypheus. Get out there and seal the Breach.”

“He’s starting to make a lot of sense,” Hawke warned, “and I do _not_ want to leave him behind.”

“You’ll have to,” Stroud said. “Go. Go now, while the rift is still open, while you still have a chance to leave.”

“Why,” Kiriya began -- and then she snatched at Hawke’s hand. “We’ll remember you, Warden,” she said, and she knew her voice was splintering on tears, and she yelled at Hawke, “Come on!”

Out. Again that weightlessness of falling, again the green flashing light, and Kiriya slammed the rift shut behind her and -- 

A cacophony of high-pitched shrieking and wailing! Demons suddenly frozen in their tracks and then -- 

Kiriya hit the ground and screamed. 

She was not in pain.

She was not injured.

But the blood of so many lives lay thick on the stones.

The blood of a good man, left behind in the Fade.

Up to her knees. She threw her head back, and _howled_. A wordless promise. She owed it to Stroud. 

She had to do what needed to be done.

There were tears in Hawke’s eyes when he lifted her to her feet.

She pulled away from him. From the dawning grief in her companions’ eyes. 

Straight to Cullen -- and she understood why he flinched back from her -- and she said, “Who is left here?”

“We’ve subdued the Grey Wardens, and all of the demons are dead. The dragon, too.”

“And we have Erimond in custody.” Leliana looked grave.

Kiriya met her eyes, but unwillingly. “Keep him alive. I will judge him at Skyhold. And before that I must speak with you.”

“You have only to ask.”

“Gather the Grey Wardens,” she said.

Blood on blue and mail. “Word of this will spread. None will understand what happened, and you will be as animals to be hunted down. I give you a choice, and I offer you shelter. Join the Inquisition. We will aid you in rebuilding your order, and we will protect you from Orlesian reprisals, and you will continue in your ancient and sacred duty.”

Frowns and whispers all around.

She turned to her companions and met their eyes.

“There is no one to lead us,” a Grey Warden murmured. Her shield lay in pieces at her feet.

“I will deal with that,” Kiriya said.

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on [tumblr](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) and my Dragon Age: Inquisition blog is [here](http://ninemoons42-inquisition.tumblr.com/).


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